Authors: Antoinette Stockenberg
Embers (43 page)
"
Of course you can, my dear. They
'
re the merest trinkets, but they
'
re rather pretty. I thought of you at once when I saw them in town. Let me put them on you.
"
"
No
...
I shouldn
'
t even be here, in your rooms. You shouldn
'
t have summoned me.
"
"
Of course I should have. Who else? I bought these for you, not for the cook. Because you
'
ve been so good with the children.
"
"
Oh
...
the children
...
yes
...
I
'
m very fond of them.
"
"
As they are of you. Now, come. Has a man never slipped a jewel through your ear before? Why do you keep backing away? I have only the simplest design, and that
'
s to see you adorned in the way you ought to be. Really, you
'
re too skittish by half. Ah, very well. Here, then. Open your hand. Take these. They
'
re for you. And when you
'
re in the privacy of your bedroom, slip them through your ears and think of me, and of how unfair you
'
re being.
"
"
Yes
...
may I go now?
"
"
Yes, yes you may, Miss All-Innocence. But I warn you not to bedevil me with those complex looks tomorrow during the children
'
s tea. And when you push young James on the swing, let me caution you: don
'
t laugh your merry laugh, and don
'
t
— for God
'
s sake, the one thing you must
not
do in front of
me is
—
hold him close and whisper in his ear. Or you will send me over the edge, I promise you. These weeks
...
since your arrival here
...
have been absolute
...
hell. You cannot expect me to endure much more
...
than I have already.
"
"
Yes, sir. No, sir.
"
****
Meg blinked, and then she blinked again.
My God.
What was it? A vision? A dream too vividly imagined? No, she decided; not a dream. It was right there, in front of her, the whole scene, life-size, in three dimensions and Technicolor. She
'
d seen it all with crystal clarity, right down to the brass buttons on Gordon Camplin
'
s double-breasted blazer and the sapphire ring on his middle finger—the same ring that he wore tonight, in fact.
A vision, then.
Either the dollhouse had got big, or Meg had got small. One way or another she
'
d been there, watching a man who looked very much like the society photos Meg had unearthed in her research: suave, dapper, with slicked brown hair and a pencil-thin moustache. A man not at all used to hearing the word
no.
But in the vision
—
if that was what it was
—
Margaret Atwells had appeared wearing a ho-hum dress in dark gray, with her hair pulled back severely in a bun. A nun would dress that way, or a librarian. For the life of her, Meg could not understand how her grandmother could ever have become an obsession of Gordon Camplin. Couldn
'
t he have found a sexier servant to seduce? What was it about Margaret Atwells that had driven him
"
to the edge,
"
as he claimed, in a few short weeks? The woman in Meg
'
s vision had seemed so modest, so bewildered, so determined to avoid eye contact.
Ah. But what about the
other
Margaret Atwells
—
the one who apparently shot complex looks at Gordon Camplin during the children
'
s tea, and laughed at young James
'
s antics, and held him close and whispered in his ear?
That
Margaret Atwells was another woman altogether: alive, spontaneous, loving, playful.
Was she also seducible? Meg buried her face in her hands, trying to recapture the vision in her mind. Obviously Gordon Camplin had seen something in Margaret Atwells
's face that Orel
Tremblay
—
and now Meg
—
had not.
Could
her grandmother have been attracted to Camplin? Or at least intrigued by his attention? Could she even have been sending him signals without being aware of it?
Meg tried to recapture the expression on her grandmother
'
s face, but all she could imagine was her own face, sending signals to Tom Wyler.
The issue of Camplin
'
s guilt had been a cut-and-dried one for Meg. Was she being fair to him? Was she taking into account a woman
'
s emoti
ons, which were rarely cut-and-
dried? Meg herself was her own best example. She loved Allie as fiercely, as tenderly, as any mother could. But now
—
she was able to admit it freely
—
s
he also loved Tom Wyler. Any fool could see that those were incompatible loyalties.
It was too confusing. First the dance, and now this
.
Meg had made a hopeless tangle of history and current events, and she was way too tired to try sorting it out tonight. She turned off the lights of the dollhouse and stood up to go. The shed could not be locked; she
'
d have to take a chance that whoever it was who
'
d ransacked the furnishings would not be back.
Call it a premonition,
she thought grimly.
****
Meg was in her slip, hanging up the
damp,
wrinkly remains of her silk dress, when her sister stomped into the bedroom in a fine rage.
"
All I can say is, I hope your night went better than mine,
"
Allie said angrily. She was like a tulip closed up tight on a cold, wet day.
"
Bobby made another scene?
"
asked Meg, alarmed.
"
I
wish
,
"
said Allie, throwing herself on Meg
'
s bed.
"
Tom would
'
ve taken him out and been my hero. No. What Tom did was offer a
ride
to two of the
help
.
Why
is he so
damn
ed
chivalrous?
"
"
Don
'
t be mean, Allie,
"
said Meg, secretly elated.
"
It
'
s not like we have a transit system.
"
"
They live in
Ellsworth
,
for God
'
s sake.
'
Oh, no problem,
'
he tells them.
'
That
'
s out my way.
'
So
I
get dropped off
first
.
I hate midwesterners. They
'
re too
...
too
...
nice
.
"
"
Allie, come on. The night could
'
ve ended in outright bloodshed,
"
Meg said flatly.
"
All
'
s well that ends well.
"
"
Which reminds me. Do you have my earrings?
"
Meg picked up the gold hoops from her dresser and dropped them in her sister
'
s hand.
"
That wasn
'
t very nice, what you did.
"
"
Thanks.
"
Allie fingered them thoughtfully and said,
"
I don
'
t know what to do about Bobby. I thought we finally had an understanding. I thought he
'
d be way too embarrassed to show his face around me after the way he screwed up out west. Dammit! Lisa and her big mouth.
"
"
How
'
s Lisa doing, by the way?
"
Meg asked as she slipped the pearl teardrops from her ears. She
'
d forgotten completely that they were there; now she looked at them with a
sudden
mix of fear and fascination. They were the ones, all right: the
"
trinkets
"
that Gordon Camplin had given their grandmother. No wonder he hadn
'
t been able to take his eyes off Meg earlier.
"
Oh, Lisa
'
s doing all right. Better than I am,
"
Allie said with a glum look.
Meg looked up sharply from her reverie.
"
Meaning?
"
"
Meaning nothing special,
"
Allie said tiredly.
"
I have
not
had a drink
—
even though everyone around me seems to be awash in alcohol. But
...
I
'
m getting discouraged, Meg,
"
Allie said, lowering her head in complete dejection.
"
Tom and I should be so much further along than we are. I love him so much more than he loves me. I wish he
'd just ...
catch up. We have such a great thing going
..."
Meg put down the teardrops and looked at her sister. When she was four years old, Allie had drooped her head in just that way and said,
"
I wish Mommy would stop being dead. I wish she would come back and be with us, and then we could take care of her heart so it would keep working.
"
And Meg had been forced to tell her,
"
Mommy can
'
t stop being dead, Allie. It
'
s too late to fix her heart.
"
Allie had cried on Meg
'
s breast in wrenching, forlorn sobs, until Meg thought both their hearts would break, hers and Allie
'
s.
Meg couldn
'
t go through that again; couldn
'
t say,
"
It
'
s too late to fix Tom
'
s heart.
"
So she went up to her sister and rubbed her back in broad, reassuring circles and said,
"
You
'
re too impatient.
"
Allie said nothing at first. And then, in a voice as even as steady rain, she said,
"
You meant what you said to Bobby, didn
'
t you. That there
'
s not going to be any marriage.
"
"
That isn
'
t what I meant at all,
"
said Meg quickly.
"
I meant
...
I
had
to say something like that
...
Bobby was in a dangerous mood
—
"
"
Oh,
please.
Bobby?
"
Allie said, dismissing the idea. She shook her head.
"
That couldn
'
t have been the reason. You know something that I don
'
t, Meg. And I deserve to hear it. Tom
'
s told you he doesn
'
t care for me; is that it?
"
"
No! No, he
'
s never said that! He
'
s told me that he thinks you
'
re fond of
him.
That
'
s all he
'
s told me.
"
"
You
'
re kidding!
"
Allie said, her eyes lighting up with sudden hope.
"
That
'
s as far as he
'
s figured things out? He
merely
thinks
I
'
m merely
fond? Meg, I
'
ve done everything but rip off my underwear and say
'
Take me, I
'
m yours.
'
Fond? Is he kidding?
"
Meg shrugged unhappily.
Allie laughed, relieved.
"
I guess I haven
'
t been aggressive enough. I
thought
I was. Well, okay
—
I
will
rip off my underwear the next time I see him.
"
"
Now that would be really dumb,
"
Meg said quickly.
"
You never want to seem too eager with a man.
"
"
In gen
eral, yes. But if I played hard-to-
get with Tom Wyler
,
I
'
d have as much chance of landing him as
...
as Comfort —
or you! No; we
'
re in a relationship
—
he said so himself. All it needs is a little shove.
"
"
Allie, y
'
know
...
relationships
...
I read somewhere that sixty-one percent of
U.S.
women think they
'
re in a steady relationship, but only twenty-eight percent of men do. Doesn
'
t
that
tell you something?
"
"
Yeah
—
that men are masters of denial,
"
said Allie, scrambling from her sister
'
s bed with a new spring in her step.
"
Thanks, Meg,
"
she added, giving her a quick squeeze on the way out. She stopped and turned at the door.
"
When I get back from
Chicago
, I
'
m hitting Tom Wyler with everything I
'
ve got.
"
Meg, dismayed, began pulling her slip over her head, mostly to hide her emotions. When she heard Allie cry out her name she yanked the slip the rest of the way off in one sharp pull.
"
What?
"
she asked, startled, as Allie ran back to her.
Allie took Meg by the hips and turned her toward the light. She touched a spot in the small of Meg
'
s back.
"
How
'
d you
do
this to yourself?
"
Puzzled, Meg twisted around to look, then turned to the dresser mirror for help. There she saw a black-and-blue mark, dark and ugly and the size of a fist, in the middle of her back.
At gargoyle height.
